Category talk:Diseases
Most (but not all) of these diseases are caused by infectious organisms (mostly bacteria and viruses but a few are other types). The remaining diseases are caused by vitamin deficiencies, genetic disorders or exposure to non-biological materials. Would it be useful to create a "Disease Organisms" sub-cat? It could then be sub-cat'ed with the "Organisms" cat too. ML4E (talk) 19:20, August 29, 2015 (UTC) :Seems to me the category has reached "critical mass" for a split. I think we should. TR (talk) 19:31, August 29, 2015 (UTC) ::I think we could, but some of the articles would need to be retooled if we convert them from articles about diseases to articles about organisms which cause diseases. Most of our infectious disease articles name diseases in both the article titles and the articles' bodies, and identify the germ that causes the diseases in the first sentence: ::*"The 1918 flu pandemic . . . was an influenza pandemic . . . involving the H1N1 influenza virus." ::*AIDS is a collection of symptoms and infections . . . caused by the human immunodeficiency virus." by the way, we already have an article on [[HIV] as well as AIDS, and both are in this category.) ::*"Anthrax is an acute disease caused by the bacterium Bacillus anthracis." ::Et cetera. ::So it seems to me that, if we were to reclassify articles as disease-causing infectious organisms, those would have to be retitled and rewritten as "The H1N1 virus caused the 1918 flu pandemic," "HIV is a virus which causes the collection of symptoms and infections known as AIDS," "B anthracis is the bacterium that causes anthrax," etc. ::However, with the exception of HIV, at least among those examples, HT didn't write about the germs, he wrote about the diseases. I realize this is a rather fine point, but I do think it's worth making. :::I'm not sure we need to rename the article so long as it names the organism that causes it. After all, a number of the articles are illustrated with photos of microscopic images of the infectious agent and not symptoms or other signs of the disease. ML4E (talk) 20:02, August 31, 2015 (UTC) ::I think the subcat is worth creating, but I would refer to it as "Infectious Diseases" for precision's sake. We can also have subcats for "Congenital Diseases" and "Diseases Caused by Vitamin Deficiencies" (though I believe we only have two of the latter), and keep an eye out for other sub-cats. We wouldn't put them into the Organisms category, though since that category already has Animals and Plants as sub-cats, we should also be on the lookout for candidates for Viruses and Monera subcats, as well as Protists and Fungi (though I highly doubt we'll end up with either of those). Turtle Fan (talk) 03:21, August 30, 2015 (UTC) :::I mentioned "Disease Organisms" (perhaps "Disease Causing Organisms" would be a better name) only because some examples are not particularly infectious. For instance, Anthrax is not unless the spores have been weaponized. Likewise, not withstanding news reports, Ebola is not particularly infectious needing contact with bodily fluids to be transmitted between individuals. Nor is Malaria, needing the mosquito intermediary to be transmitted. :::Most of the "Infectious Diseases" are either Viruses or Monera (half and half as a guesstimate) with Malaria being caused by a Protists, Trench foot having a possible Fungi component and Hookworm technically being from the Animal Kingdom. I count three Deficiency diseases: Beriberi and Scurvy being Vitamin deficiencies with Goiters being a mineral deficiency (namely iodine). It, along with two genetic disorders (Tay-Sachs and Williams-Beuren syndrome) didn't seem worthwhile splitting off at this time. ML4E (talk) 20:02, August 31, 2015 (UTC)